she lifted it again and again.  Then she gently nudged it.  Then, the obtuse gate not taking the hint, she butted it gently, then harder and still harder, till it rattled again.  At this juncture I emerged from my hiding-place, when the old villain scampered off with great precipitation.  She knew she was trespassing, and she had learned that there were usually some swift penalties attached to this pastime.

I have owned but three cows and loved but one.  That was the first one, Chloe, a bright red, curly-pated, golden-skinned Devonshire cow, that an ocean steamer landed for me upon the banks of the Potomac one bright May Day many clover summers ago.  She came from the north, from the pastoral regions of the Catskills, to graze upon the broad commons of the national capital.  I was then the fortunate and happy lessee of an old place with an acre of ground attached, almost within the shadow of the dome of the Capitol.  Behind a high but aged and decrepit board fence I indulged my rural and unclerical tastes.  I could look up from my homely tasks and cast a potato almost in the midst of that cataract of marble steps that flows out of the north wing of the patriotic pile.  Ah! when that creaking and sagging back gate closed behind me in the evening, I was happy; and when it opened for my egress thence in the morning, I was not happy.  Inside that gate was a miniature farm, redolent of homely, primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and implements of agriculture and horticulture, broods of chickens, and growing pumpkins, and a thousand antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life.  Outside of it were the marble and iron palaces, the paved and blistering streets, and the high, vacant mahogany desk of a government clerk.  In that ancient inclosure I took an earth bath twice a day.  I planted myself as deep in the soil as I could, to restore the normal tone and freshness of my system, impaired by the above-mentioned government mahogany.  I have found there is nothing like the earth to draw the various social distempers out of one.  The blue devils take flight at once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them.  Emerson intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two gardens; but I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and twitch-grass without in some way getting rid of many weeds and fungi, unwholesome growths, that a petty indoor life is forever fostering in my moral and intellectual nature.

But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came.  She was the jewel for which this homely setting waited.  My agriculture had some object then.  The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when she paused before it.  How we waited for her coming!  Should I send Drewer, the colored patriarch, for her?  No; the master of the house himself should receive Juno at the capital.

“One cask for you,” said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill of lading.

“Then I hope it’s a cask of milk,” I said.  “I expected a cow.”